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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29677674">young hearts die young (when they're all alone)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers'>Damned_Writers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(or rather a lack of introspection), Different But Same, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Slash, Prequel to Daniel and Johnny meeting again in s1ep1, repressed bisexuals, suggested ADHD Johnny Lawrence, the way Johnny and Daniel intertwine even when they don't realise it, vague depictions of trauma and grief</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:41:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,932</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29677674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny learned fast as a kid.</p><p>Daniel never learned.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>young hearts die young (when they're all alone)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Obviously title is from "young hearts." Man, that song has such an undercurrent of sadness to it, considering when it's used in the movie/on the show.</p><p>So in this case I thought I'd use it more directly to signify the little ways in which growing up can kill you, nbd.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p></p><div class="PZPZlf"><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="bbVIQb"><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="ujudUb u7wWjf"><p>
        <em>Time enough to live</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb u7wWjf"><p>
        <em>Never time to die</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb u7wWjf"><p>
        <em>All you had to give</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb u7wWjf"><p>
        <em>Taken by the one you loved</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb u7wWjf"><p>
        <em>And geared into a lie</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>Young hearts beat fast</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>Driving down the road</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>Rubber, plastic, metal, glass</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>Why did you have to go?</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>Young hearts die young</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>When they're all alone</em>
      </p></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc xpdxpnd"><p>
        <em>And there's no turning back now</em>
      </p></div></div></div><p> </p><p>1.</p><p>Johnny learned fast as a kid. Learned how to fade into the background when he wasn’t wanted in a room, learned how to take his mind somewhere else when someone was yelling at him, learned how to take his punches from people bigger than him, learned that the outside never showed who anyone really was, just like nice houses didn’t mean nice things were going on inside.</p><p>He struggled with a few things though. He struggled with keeping his interest in something, he struggled with friendships, he struggled with his emotions. No discipline, Sid would say, no drive, no talent, nothing.</p><p>The last of these – the emotions – was the real problem. He could put on his headphones and ignore the world, but when the world forced its way in there was no way for him to protect himself against it. When his mum cried, or a Fleetwood Mac song played that felt like it was all about him, or the time his first walkman was stolen and Sid refused to get him another one for weeks to teach him a lesson about responsibility. There were the good feelings, sure, but he’d learned fast as well that they would just get used against you, especially when they – like him – were too much: Too excited, or too loving, or too attached.</p><p>Mostly he just wanted to break things. A lot of the time he wanted to break himself. Make the outside match the inside.</p><p>He could pinpoint the moment his life changed. One of those fairytale experiences that felt like it was meant to be. The window large enough for him to see those neat rows of boys, moving in perfect unison, his whole body tense with want as he watched the sweating, muscled forms, like he was Cinderella wanting to go to the ball.</p><p>He daydreamed about those boys for a long time – long after he’d joined and his attention swivelled to sensei Kreese, like his voice was the centre of gravity. Kreese noticed him early on, how he took every bit of pain and turned it into action. His too-muchness. Wanting to break things. And instead of punishing him for it, he told him, <em>y</em><em>ou learn fast, Mr Lawrence, </em>and Johnny flushed with pride despite himself. Those <em>fucking </em> emotions, always the problem. Even though Kreese didn’t seem to mind, even clapping him on the shoulder, <em>k</em><em>eep that up </em> <em>and you’ll </em> <em>do great things. </em></p><p>Johnny knew that feeling too much would get him in trouble some day, but for some reason he couldn’t quite teach himself to stop. During a fight he could shut everything off, but beyond that... Fast learner in everything else at least. He had an interest now, he had friends, discipline, drive, talent, looks, he had it all…</p><p>Even thinking about the boys – now he was one of the boys – was okay. They were a team. They were strong. They were soldiers in the same army. He’d become them, almost so effortlessly that it was as if he’d been this person all along. There was no need to think about them in the way he’d done the first time he’d seen them –<em> sweating, grunting, beautiful</em> - and if he still did it was only to run through the drills in his head, pinpoint weaknesses, be the best student he could be. Looking at boys was okay, as long as he turned whatever he felt into wanting to be better than them, turn those thoughts into something violent and competitive while they were still swirling in an unformed mass in his head, confusing enough that he could pretend they were about whatever he wanted them to be about.</p><p>Johnny learned fast and what he learned stuck inside him like lead. Learned how to become the star of the show, learned how to hit hard, learned how to get the girl, learned how to make everything he felt about boys into wanting to break things, like a magic trick – forcing his emotions into a different shape, like he’d done with himself, until it became easy. Once the invisible boy, then the contortionist, now the strong man. Whatever was required of him, he learned it without question. That was why Kreese knew he was the number one student of Cobra Kai. Always would be.</p><p>Johnny learned fast right up until the day that Daniel <em>fucking </em>LaRusso came along.</p><p>After that everything became so difficult suddenly, like the ball had ended and the clock had struck midnight and he was just dressed in rags after all. But he kept everything he’d learned like the ace-student he’d been, didn’t try to learn anything new, was already good at everything that mattered, even though those messages were confusing now – fade into the background, break things, take his punches, punch back, invisible-boy-contortionist-strong-man.</p><p>Johnny learned fast that there was no point in learning. Learned that there were some people who got what they worked for and others who would always struggle with the basic things. No discipline, no drive, no talent, nothing. Learned that looking-at-thinking-about-talking-to Daniel LaRusso was as pointless as imagining life was going to get any better.</p><p>Learned fast that nothing good could come from Daniel LaRusso in his life.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>2.</p><p>Daniel never learned, he’d been told by his third grade teacher. Stubborn, loud, defiant. <em>You never learn, Daniel. </em> <em>You’ll never be big or strong</em> – growth spurt failing to hit even as all the other boys started filling out and up. <em>You’ll never have money. You’ll never amount to much. </em></p><p>But he didn’t learn. Got into fights he couldn’t finish, stood up for himself like he mattered, created a box of all the hits he took that he kept firmly shut, except for every once in awhile when it all spilled over and his perfect smile wobbled, just enough that anyone who paid attention or cared might call him on it. Cover it up with another smile, a bigger stunt, a harder punch.</p><p>Kept on fighting. Never learning a damn thing.</p><p>It was alright back in New Jersey. He got a reputation and nobody messed with him unless they wanted to mess with his cousins too. And yeah, he was scrawny, but he fought like a feral cat – with about as much precision too. And he was gonna make something of himself he said with so much confidence that he could make everyone else believe it too. Everything he was on the inside kept in that box, shut so tightly that nobody could see beneath the surface.</p><p>He was nothing but the outside. He was okay with that. Nothing really worthwhile on the inside anyway.</p><p>And right when he was practically comfortable in the chafing sweater of Daniel LaRusso – that loud-mouthed kid who might even make it outta here one day – he was taken away and had to start again. Daniel LaRusso was just like any other weaker kid in LA, attracting all the wrong kinda attention. Never learned, did he? Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he?</p><p>Funny: He never knew he was lonely until he moved to Reseda.</p><p>It was okay though. The box was large, it could keep that emotion in there as well, just like the fear and anger whenever he spotted Johnny Lawrence in those months leading up to the tournament, and the sympathy that came after it, even though the brace on his leg tempered that sympathy with a reminder: Johnny was bad news, even without Cobra Kai mantras poisoning his mind, and his issues would spill over into the lives of everyone he touched. <em>Leave him alone, Daniel. You'll make it, just like you said you would. He'll never fucking learn how to cope outta high-school.  </em></p><p>Daniel had enough problems without caring about Johnny and every time he suddenly found that he did he put it in the box. Easy. There was no need to look too closely at whatever Johnny did to him. There was no need to look at any of it too closely.</p><p>Even after all these years when the outside began to fray nobody noticed, the mask too perfect and if Amanda sometimes prodded he had a dozen ways to draw her attention away – he was Daniel LaRusso, the best actor in the world by the time he was in his twenties, even fooling himself most of the time, Daniel LaRusso, smart-mouthed fucking kid who never learned and made it out just like he'd always said he would, just not in Jersey (he put Jersey in that box too, along with the knowledge that none of his so-called friends from that time had survived the transfer to LA or that he had ever made any new ones besides Miyagi and Amanda and Miyagi was dead now… in the box). He was Daniel LaRusso pulled up by his bootstraps, Daniel LaRusso incapable of being stretched too thin, Daniel LaRusso entirely severed from his past, Daniel LaRusso the success story, stubborn, high-and-mighty, refusing to learn, Daniel LaRusso-</p><p>And there was Johnny fucking Lawrence again, like he’d wandered out of the classroom and right into the car dealership. Thirty-four years disappeared in a flash of recognition. <em>Johnny Lawrence, how the hell are ya? he asked, seeing that however he was it wasn’t good and the box creaked open, beginning to spill, making him care again. Never learned how to cope outta high-school, just like you said. So what? So it's your fault?  </em>The mask - charming, polite - stayed practically uncracked. Best performance he'd ever managed.</p><p>He was reminded of how Johnny had never come up to him to say anything about the tournament in their final few months carefully skirting around each other at school. No apologies for the bullying before it either. He’d just quietly faded into the background to the point that if Daniel hadn’t been actively looking out for him on the corridors, he would’ve thought he’d dropped out of school. It'd struck him as weird that Johnny could do that when before he'd loomed so large. Folded into himself until he became almost physically smaller, while Daniel finally hit that growth spurt, even if it was only upwards.</p><p>And yeah, so he’d been looking out for him. Looking wasn’t anything. Looking was allowed. Whatever the "<em>looking" </em>might signify would go into the box, entirely unexamined. And whatever he felt now - thinking about how Johnny had never apologised, about the sympathy Daniel still felt for him, about the looking, about Johnny’s face when he’d told him <em>you’re alright, LaRusso </em> and his face in the parking lot going red as Kreese choked him and his face as he caught glimpses of him and tried not to stare for too long<em>,</em> and his face now, older and withdrawn, but still had those golden locks, and about a thousand other things - it didn’t matter.</p><p>Because Johnny was bad news, just like he'd been in the past when the supposedly unable to learn, stubborn, reckless Daniel had decided to do nothing other than look and put everything else in the box. Nothing good could come out of doing anything more than looking.</p><p>So he was gonna do the same thing now, fix his car, and then Johnny could once more quietly disappear out of his life.</p><p>See. He could fucking learn.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
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